


something always happens whenever we’re together

by Lirazel



Category: Infinite (Band), K-POP RPF, K-pop, Korean Pop, Kpop-Fandom
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 16:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunggyu thought he knew what to expect, living with Myungsoo and Sungyeol, but there’s a lot he’s going to discover about his new roommates that he never noticed before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something always happens whenever we’re together

At first, Sunggyu only really notices the sorts of things he expected to notice—Sungyeol snores, Myungsoo sleeps like the dead, Sungyeol is the _lightest sleeper in the world_ (whenever Woohyun comes tripping in in the middle of the night to borrow Sunggyu’s phone charger, Sungyeol ends up shrieking and throwing pillows), Myungsoo likes to keep the room cold, Sungyeol takes forever to get dressed in the morning because he can never remember what he wore recently, Myungsoo will have moments of intense room-cleaning but then give up because it’s a losing battle when his two roommates don’t make the same effort. Sungyeol leaves wet towels in unexpected places, Myungsoo is extremely protective of his camera equipment and gets pissy whenever he thinks it’s being treated disrespectfully. The ripped-out tags from Sungyeol’s clothes never quite make it to the trash can, Myungsoo sleep-talks about complete nonsense (sometimes in Japanese).

All of these things are things Sunggyu had known already, because they all know each other’s quirks and habits by this time—even if they haven’t experienced each one firsthand, they’ve heard one of the others complaining about each one. He’s never roomed with Sungjong, but he knows (because he’s heard from Howon) you can have entire conversations with the maknae while he’s sleeping that he won’t remember the next day. He’s never roomed with Dongwoo, but he knows (because Myungsoo and Sungyeol have told him) that bizarre little toys will end up under his roommates’ pillows for no discernible reason. And he’s sure that Hoya knows (because Sunggyu has whined about it to him) that Woohyun _sings in his sleep_ and that he and Kibum text each other all night long and that Sungyeol knows that Sunggyu himself gets angry if anyone touches his pillow (Sunggyu’s heard Sungyeol and Woohyun laughing about it). That’s just how it is, living with each other for years in small spaces, hormones and peculiarities jam-packed and inescapable. If anyone has any secrets at all at this point, they must be of the buried-deep-and-never-acknowledged kind; otherwise they’d have been picked to pieces by the other members by now. 

So Sunggyu had thought he’d known what to expect living with the visual line. He hadn’t been too thrilled with the assignment (and maybe resents Sungjong and Woohyun more than a little for their own space, even if he’d been the one to insist on fairness by kai bai bo), dreading dealing with Sungyeol’s sleeping habits the most (and, okay, he may have grumbled about it a little, but that doesn’t mean Woohyun needed to smack him upside the head and tell him to keep his complaints to himself. So what if Woohyun’s room doesn’t have any windows? He’d take that over listening to Sungyeol snore _any day_ ), but he’d been pretty sure he knew what he was in for. It had never, ever occurred to him that there would be things that Dongwoo hadn’t told him about. Things that he’s…really not sure how to deal with.

Like the way that Myungsoo will lay sprawled across Sungyeol’s bed with his chin on his folded hands, just watching Sungyeol as Sungyeol sits with his long legs folded and his back against the headboard and goes about whatever normal thing he’s doing—computer games, twitter updates, trolling the fan café, chatting with friends, flipping through magazines, going over scripts, texting furiously with Joon or Jaejin or whoever, calling his mom. And Myungsoo just…watches. And watches. Doesn’t move, doesn’t talk, doesn’t sleep (well, most of the time. There are times when idol exhaustion takes over, but that’s to be expected), barely even blinks. And Sungyeol completely ignores him, acting like he doesn’t have a set of (let’s be honest—almost frighteningly intense) eyes absolutely glued to his face. It’s unnerving, really, and Sunggyu tries to ignore it because Sungyeol can be entertaining (even Sunggyu can admit that), but not when he’s _doing nothing_. Sunggyu absolutely cannot figure out what on earth is so absorbing to Myungsoo (and he’s too scared to ask. He’s not sure he wants to know the answer. “He probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, hyung,” Woohyun assures him. “I’ve seen him stare at the wall for an hour. That’s just Myungsoo.” But Sunggyu’s seen the wall-staring, too, and he’s pretty sure that Myungsoo’s eyes go blank when he does that. When he’s staring at Sungyeol, his eyes are anything but blank, even if Sunggyu couldn’t begin to label the things shining there). 

And that’s not nearly as weird (creepy) as all the times he sees Myungsoo _smelling_ Sungyeol. He’d seen Myungsoo bumping his nose against Sungyeol’s shoulder or the nape of his neck before while they’re on the stage, but he’d always written it off to fanservice, the nose thing an accidental side effect of just getting as close to Sungyeol as he can. Sunggyu and Woohyun always plan their fanservice carefully (though Woohyun’s a great one for extemporizing), so he’d always just sort of imagined that Sooyeol couple does the same. And yeah, he knows that Myungsoo likes to cuddle up to Sungyeol as much as Sungyeol will allow even when they aren’t performing, but he’d never noticed just how much (he’s always had so many more important things to pay attention to). But now he can’t help but notice, notice the way Myungsoo will climb onto Sungyeol’s bed to sit beside him and then attaches his nose to Sungyeol’s shoulder, breathing deep and letting his eyes sink closed like he’s sucking in the scent of a fine wine or something. Sometimes he even crowds up behind Sungyeol when Sungyeol’s flipping through the clothes on the hangers trying to figure out something to wear; Myungsoo plants his nose right at the bump at the top of Sungyeol’s spine and keeps it there until Sungyeol elbows him—none too gently— away and orders him to go get himself ready before the van leaves without him.

Sunggyu almost wants to say something about it, because that is _not normal_ —normal guys don’t go around smelling their best friends like they’re coated in chocolate or something—but it weirds him out so much that he can’t quite bring himself to bring it up. Besides, it must not bother Sungyeol too much because Sungyeol has never been one to hold his tongue when something bothers him; if it irritated him, he’d yell at Myungsoo about it and Myungsoo would sulk but he’d stop. Sunggyu’s always known that Sungyeol tolerates a lot more from Myungsoo than he would from anyone else, but he’s never been quite so aware of it before. All he knows is that if anyone—even Dongwoo, with his overly touchy ways that Sunggyu puts up with because it’s Dongwoo and he’s an angel—was coming up to _him_ and sniffing him for no apparent reason, he’d put an end to it. But Sungyeol doesn’t.

Sunggyu tries to ignore it as best he can, but here’s the worst part of all: at one point he gets so curious about just what it is that captivates Myungsoo’s nose so much that he actually takes a sniff of Sungyeol himself. He does it as casually and unobtrusively as possible, waiting for an opportunity to present itself, and one morning when he lets Sungjong have the front seat, he ends up sitting next to Sungyeol and when he goes to buckle his seat belt, he takes a deep breath close to Sungyeol’s arm. It’s actually really anticlimactic –Sungyeol just smells like normal guy: fabric softener, some coffee, a hint of his body wash, a little bit of sweat, a layer of skin under that. Probably after they get to the salon, he’ll smell like hair product and makeup, but for now, there’s absolutely nothing out of the ordinary—he doesn’t even use cologne (or aftershave or whatever) like Woohyun does. Sunggyu finds himself side-eyeing Myungsoo and shaking his head at his behavior more than usual after that: what on earth is the appeal?

But Myungsoo is a great dongsaeng—obedient, respectful, dedicated, eager to please—and Sunggyu’s never going to forget just how hard Myungsoo has worked and how he’s let himself be used to promote the band, so Sunggyu tries to cut him some slack. He’d read once that some people’s body chemistry is just irresistible to other people—like _Twilight_ , Woohyun says one night when Sunggyu mentions it to him. Woohyun’s getting ready for bed, wearing that stupid sleeveless hoodie that shows off his arms again, and Sunggyu’s lingering just inside the doorway (sliding doors that don’t even lock), hoping Woohyun will change his mind and let him sleep in here away from the snoring and the smelling. “Maybe Sungyeol is exactly Myungsoo’s brand of heroin,” Woohyun says with a grin, and Sunggyu doesn’t get the allusion (“I watched it with Nicole and Min, hyung. It’s really bad but kind of funny”), but before he can get Woohyun to explain it to him, Woohyun picks up a pillow, hurls it at his face, and commands him to get out so he can sleep. (Sunggyu maybe sulks just a little as he goes back to his own room. It wouldn’t kill Woohyun to let him sleep on the floor now and then. It’s not even like Sunggyu’s insisting on sharing the bed, though they’ve done that before so what’s the big deal? He really should have pulled rank and claimed one of the rooms for himself. Stupid kai bai bo.)

There are other things that are even more annoying than the smelling and the staring, though decidedly less bizarre. Like the roughhousing. After just a month or two in the new dorm, Sunggyu’s already lot count of how many times he’s walked into the room to find Sungyeol and Myungsoo wrestling—on the bed, on the floor, against the wall. They’re both so stupidly tall that it pretty much looks just like limbs all tangled up, and they call each other all kinds of insulting names as they kick and try to get each other into headlocks, and Sunggyu can never quite keep track of whose hands are where, and they seem totally unperturbed by the amount of times they slam into the wall or against the bedframe or end up falling onto a heap on the floor when one of them slips on a pile of dirty clothes. That’s irritating enough, but then there are the times where they end up bringing one of the clothes racks (sometimes _Sunggyu’s_ ) down around them or they do it when Sunggyu is trying to listen to Nell and prepare for an interview, and that is just too far. Sunggyu gives them lectures (during which Myungsoo politely tries to look like he’s listening, but Sungyeol just rolls his eyes) on being respectful of other people’s property (“Maybe they were just so offended by your fashion choices they were trying to make a statement, hyung,” Woohyun volunteers. “I don’t really blame them.” He gets a punch in the ribs in exchange for his opinion) and after that they keep to their side of the room and pull apart when Sunggyu comes into the room. He scowls at the two of them, hair messy and too-pretty faces flushed, and wishes they’d grow up. If they ever get bruised in a place that shows, he’s going to _kill_ them.

And they fight. A lot. About whose t-shirt that is (it’s boring and grey, it’s not like it _matters_. “Not like it’s animal print or something, right, hyung?” Woohyun is getting so _mouthy_ these days), about who used the last of the toothpaste, about whose turn it is to do the laundry, about whether Taeyeon or Yoona is prettier, about whose legs hurt more after dance practice. Sometimes it seems like they don’t even realize they’re doing it, bickering by instinct the way Dongwoo dances when he should be standing still, no real anger behind it at all, just words ping-ponged back and forth (Sungyeol’s are substantially more witty, Sunggyu can admit, but Myungsoo shows his typical stubbornness and tries to keep up). But other times they really _fight_ , shouting insults that are the same as the ones they use when they wrestle but that sound completely different when fury is fueling them. Myungsoo glares and Sungyeol fumes and they scowl at each other or ignore each other completely, and when they give each other the silent treatment, it sounds even louder than the shouting. 

Sunggyu hates it. Not only because the shouting interrupts his quiet time and the pettiness affects group dynamics (not that they give anything away in front of the fans: they are both professionals, even if they’re little kids sometimes at home, and if Myungsoo gets really touchy with Dongwoo and Sungyeol throws a lot of hearts with Woohyun instead of the two of them doing their Sooyeol thing, well variety is good, right?), but because it just seems _wrong_ , the two of them sitting on separate seats in the van, not throwing food at each other during dinner (well, Sunggyu doesn’t miss that), keeping their backs to each other as they get ready for bed in silence. Sunggyu drops hints about them needing to make up, but they don’t seem to take them, and he ends up fuming and ready to give more lectures (sometimes lecturing’s all he can do, and that’s pretty scary, honestly). 

“Friends fight,” Woohyun says, not even looking up from his phone—he’s probably texting Kibum again. What do they even talk about, anyway? “They’ll sort it out. As long as they don’t show it in front of the fans, it’s really none of your business, hyung.”

“It’s always my business. Anything that affects Infinite is my business,” Sunggyu insists, and he’ll never admit to anyone, not even Woohyun (especially not Woohyun) that when there’s tension in the group that it seems to snake its way down his throat into his stomach and coat the insides of his esophagus with concrete (he’s the leader, he’s supposed to keep these sorts of things from happening, to keep everyone focused on Infinite and moving in the same direction). 

But maybe Woohyun knows anyway because he sets his phone down and actually looks at him now (Sunggyu definitely doesn’t fidget a little bit under his gaze). “Hyung, they both have tempers, do you really expect them not to lose them at each other? We can’t get mad at the worse things about the life we live, no matter how hard they are—can’t get mad at the company or the fans because then we seem ungrateful. If the two of them feel safe enough with each other to take things out on each other, isn’t that a good thing? Besides, they mean too much to each other to let it go on for too long. They’re both stubborn, but they’ll get over it eventually.”

And then Woohyun pushes him off the bed and tells him to get the fuck out, he’s ready to sleep and he can’t do it with Sunggyu’s hamster self lurking in the room. (Sunggyu definitely doesn’t pout as he stomps his way back to his room. He’s really going to have to put his foot down about the way Woohyun treats him one of these days. Maybe after he convinces Woohyun to let him move back in with him.)

But Woohyun’s right, because even if the silence lasts for days on end, by turns boiling or frigid, there will always be a day when Sunggyu turns around and Myungsoo’s hanging on Sungyeol’s shoulder and whining for him to buy him a treat or when Sungyeol starts a sock fight with the clean laundry and it’s like nothing ever happened between them at all. Just like that. It makes Sunggyu’s head ache.

Honestly, sometimes Sunggyu isn’t even sure why Myungsoo and Sungyeol are friends, much less best friends. But then there are other times, timse like when Myungsoo sidles up to Sungyeol’s bed with his camera in hand, ducking his head shyly, and makes it clear without saying anything that he wants Sungyeol to look at his pictures. Those times, Sungyeol will set aside whatever he’s doing and wave Myungsoo onto the bed beside him and Myungsoo’s face will crease he tries to keep from grinning as he settles into place and starts clicking through the pictures. Sungyeol looks at each of them with serious eyes, and if he isn’t effusive in his praise like Woohyun or Dongwoo would be, he finds little things to point out—that he likes the colors in that one or that the light in this one is cool. He doesn’t know the right words for things like composition or whatever (not that Sunggyu really does, either), but Myungsoo beams at every comment, and Sunggyu maybe finds himself smiling as he watches them over the top of his laptop, noting the way Sungyeol’s chin is on Myungsoo’s shoulder instead of the other way around like it usually is.

(Later, Sunggyu asks Myungsoo if he can see the pictures, and Myungsoo looks pleased—if not quite as pleased as he did when he was showing them to Sungyeol—and Sunggyu tries to say the right things, things like Sungyeol said, but he isn’t quite sure if he does or not—words have never been his thing, really. And he doesn’t say anything at all about how very many pictures of Sungyeol there are in this batch, even if Myungsoo tries to rush past them to get to the others, his cheeks pink. “Sungyeol makes a great model,” Woohyun says. “Myungsoo takes lots of pictures of Sungjong, too, and it makes sense because the two of them are the prettiest. Are you jealous he’s not taking pictures of you, hyung? I’ll buy a camera and take them of you if it’ll make you feel better about yourself.” Sunggyu doesn’t compliment Woohyun at all on the dinner he makes that night, no matter how good the food is—and it’s really, really good—just to punish him for being so ridiculous.)

And then there’s the night that Sungyeol comes back from another audition with a carefully blank face and his jokes through dinner seem forced and anything but light-hearted (Woohyun makes his favorite dishes, but Sungyeol just picks at them). Sunggyu keeps an eye on him as they wind down for the night, knowing how these things sometimes get to him (Sunggyu gets that; he remembers what it was like after being turned down by yet another company in those days before Woollim, and he thinks about telling Sungyeol that just because he got rejected doesn’t mean he’s bad—it’s not like Sungyeol is a bad actor or anything; not as good as Hoya, maybe, but definitely better than the rest of them—but he thinks maybe Sungyeol wouldn’t appreciate that so he keeps it to himself), but though Sungyeol is tense and quieter than usual, other than that, he seems fine. So Sunggyu doesn’t really understand why Myungsoo keeps staring at him with worried eyes, at least not until late that night when he wakes to the sound of quiet sniffing and Myungsoo’s whispering.

“Yeollie?”

Sunggyu tries to shake the cotton from his head and turns over to blink blearily in the direction of the other two’s beds. Through his barely-cracked-open eyes and the faint light of the nightlight in the bathroom, he can see that a tall figure standing beside Sungyeol’s bed. 

“Yeollie?” Myungsoo whispers again, and there’s another sniff or two but otherwise Sungyeol doesn’t answer. Sleep is slipping away from Sunggyu like sheets down his legs and all he wants is to tug it back over him and fall into oblivion again, but for some reason he can’t drag his eyes closed or block out the quiet hitching of Sungyeol’s breaths.

Myungsoo sighs and then sleep is yanked away entirely from Sunggyu by the sight of Myungsoo climbing into Sungyeol’s bed. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sungyeol’s voice is clogged and cracking and Sunggyu hears a rustle of covers that’s probably him trying to push Myungsoo away.

“Shut up, Yeol,” Myungsoo says, and Sunggyu can see in the dim light that Myungsoo’s scooted right up against Sungyeol, and Sunggyu is at a loss to know what to do. Would a good leader get up and put a stop to this? He doesn’t know why he feels the need to—he wouldn’t be weirded out if it were Myungsoo and Dongwoo or Sungyeol and Sungjong, but somehow this seems different.

“Your feet are really fucking cold,” Sungyeol says.

“Your breath is really fucking bad,” Myungsoo answers.

But then they’re silent except for the shuddering sound of Sungyeol recovering from his tears. 

Sunggyu pulls his pillow over his face and wishes for the old roommate assignments. At least when Woohyun cries in the middle of the night he has the decency to go to the bathroom to do it where he won’t disturb anyone else. 

The first thing he sees when he wakes up is Woohyun’s face and for a second he thinks they’re still roommates before he realizes that they aren’t and that Woohyun is just waking him because it’s Woohyun’s job this week. 

“Please tell me there was a spider in Myungsoo’s bed or something and that’s why he’s sleeping with Sungyeol,” Woohyun says conversationally as though he didn’t just wake Sunggyu up at an ungodly hour (like every morning, Sunggyu thinks that he would give a year of his life if he could just roll back over and stay in bed for another hour. Like every morning, he doesn’t get to). 

Sunggyu glances over at where Myungsoo is practically on top of Sungyeol, his nose tucked in Sungyeol’s collarbone while Sungyeol snores with his mouth open.

“You didn’t wake up Sungyeol first?” Sunggyu asks around a yawn. It’s barely coherent, but Woohyun speaks Sunggyu’s yawn-language.

“You do it. I don’t want to.” Woohyun always wakes up Sungyeol first because he says it’s aggravating how attractive Sungyeol’s sleeping face is (“No one’s supposed to look that good when they just woke up, hyung. Why don’t I look that good when I just woke up? Why don’t _you_ look that good when you first wake up? Then it wouldn’t be so terrible waking up to your face every morning.”) “I want to wipe this sight from my memory and pretend I never saw it at all.”

Sunggyu waves Woohyun away and wallows around in bed for a few more minutes before he finally drags himself upright. Then he goes over and pokes Sungyeol in the shoulder, which rouses him right away.

“Why is my chest wet?” is the first thing Sungyeol asks, and then he seems to realize his best friend is drooling on his breastbone, and he shouts. “Ya, Kim Myungsoo!” He smacks Myungsoo’s shoulder—hard, but Myungsoo just moans and wriggles in closer. “Get the fuck off of me!”

“You know it takes him forever to wake up,” Sunggyu says, rolling his eyes as he wipes the sleep from them. “It’s your fault for letting him into bed with you in the first place.”

Sunggyu isn’t sure whether the flush on Sungyeol’s cheeks is leftover from sleep or is new from embarrassment, but he hurriedly extricates himself from Myungsoo’s octopus limbs and crawls over him to get out of the bed. He isn’t very careful with it, or else that knee he jabs into Myungsoo’s back is intentional, but Myungsoo just lets out of an ‘oof’ and blindly gropes until he finds a pillow to latch onto. Sungyeol doesn’t meet Sunggyu’s eyes as he hurries to the bathroom, and Sunggyu sighs because he supposes that means he’s going to be the one stuck with the impossible task of getting Myungsoo upright. (It’s Woohyun’s week! He’d march out and start yelling at Woohyun about shirking responsibilities but he can smell breakfast cooking already and it smells really good and they haven’t had time for breakfast at all this week, so maybe he’ll wait till later to tell him off.)

Sungyeol seems a little bit standoffish with Myungsoo for a couple of days after that (Sunggyu probably wouldn’t have even noticed, except that something about the sight of the two of them sleeping so comfortably together has been niggling at the back of his brain since it happened), which of course means that Myungsoo follows him around like a neglected puppy and Sungyeol snaps at him when he gets too annoying. But then Myungsoo gets a letter from his mom and ends up crying his eyes out in the van and Sungyeol rolls his eyes and grabs his hand and drags him out to get snacks or something and that night they sit in front of the TV and yell at each other while they play video games and consume more nutrition-less garbage than Sunggyu should really allow; but somehow when Myungsoo’s eyes and nose are still red like that and Sungyeol is treating him like normal again, Sunggyu can’t quite bring himself to punish them for breaking the diet rules. (“Aw, you have a heart after all!” Woohyun teases, and Sunggyu pushes his stupid face away.)

The next week Sungyeol has one of his chronic accidents and ends up slicing his hand with one of Woohyun’s knives (“What were you even doing with my knives in the first place? Those are top-of-the-line—Boohyun gave them to me—and you should keep your incompetent hands off of them!”), but the doctor decides it doesn’t need stitches, just a couple of butterfly bandages and a clean dressing, and of course it’s Myungsoo who changes the bandages when they need it, head bent beside Sungyeol’s and hands gentle but sure. Sungyeol complains the whole time about Myungsoo’s fussing, but Myungsoo looks very pleased as he finishes up (such a perfectionist. It’s one of Sunggyu’s favorite things about him). 

They haven’t really fought in a while, just bickering in that way that Sunggyu has learned to ignore, and the lack of drama maybe lulls Sunggyu into a false sense of security, at least until the day they attack. Sunggyu had gotten them to swear an oath before they moved in together that they wouldn’t take advantage of his presence in their room in order to prank him (he’d believed Myungsoo when he agreed and he’s trusting him to keep Sungyeol under control because Sungyeol probably had his fingers crossed behind his back or something), and thankfully they haven’t broken the vow yet, but count on Sungyeol to find a loophole. Apparently he doesn’t think that pranks taking place outside the dorm violate the agreement, because one morning he pulls his practice shoes out of his locker and shoves his feet into them—and shaving cream squelches around his toes and now these shoes are _ruined_.

He’s angry. Really angry. They’re so immature and Myungsoo may be a good kid but he lets Sungyeol pull him into trouble and they need to grow up and learn that they have to respect other people’s property and _it isn’t even a good prank_ and he’s _this close_ to going to the managers and telling them that the two of them need to have their phones taken away for a while until they can promise they’ll behave themselves and focus on the job.

But then he sees them standing across the room close together, hands covering their mouths as they laugh, the force of their mirth making them bump into each other, and their eyes are shining instead of dull and exhausted like they sometimes get, and he decides just to give them lots of extra chores instead (after he yells a lecture at them for a while).

“You’ve always played favorites,” Woohyun says as he sorts through his laundry that night. “You adore Myungsoo because he listens to you and you have a soft spot for Sungjong because he’s the maknae and you know you let Hoya get away with saying things to you that you’d never let anyone else even hint at. And of course you baby Dongwoo because we all do and he deserves it. Pretty much the only one of us you don’t let run all over you is Sungyeol, so really it’s a good thing that you think his friendship with Myungsoo is too damn adorable to handle. Now you’ll treat him like you do the rest of us.”

Sunggyu really, really hates it when Woohyun calls him on things like that. He likes to think that he’s fair, but he knows that he and Sungyeol clash like none of the other guys do. Sungyeol embodies just about everything that Sunggyu stands in opposition to and even if Sunggyu can admire certain things about him (like…like…well, his height), he’s never had that softness for him that he does for the other guys. But that doesn’t mean Woohyun has to talk about it. 

Stupid Woohyun. 

He glares for a few minutes, arms crossed, but Woohyun just ignores him, finishing with the laundry and tucking it away in his drawers. 

“What about you?” Sunggyu finally asks, and normally Woohyun would give him a hard time, making him clarify—‘what about me what, hyung?’ but right now he just gives him a toothy grin.

“Oh, we all know I’m your favorite, hyung. Now get the fuck out of my room.” (Sunggyu really is going to lay down the law soon and make Woohyun respect him as his hyung, but right now he’s too tired to deal with it. Later.)

They’re all so busy for the next couple of weeks with the comeback that Sunggyu barely has time to make sure that all of the kids are alive and eating and present at each schedule, much less notice anything about how they’re treating each other. But then one night they’re on some variety show (Sunggyu hates variety shows and only pays attention to the differences enough so that he can know how to instruct the kids to act) and there’s a very pretty young MC with a face that reminds Sunggyu of Taeyeon from SNSD, and Sungyeol flirts with her outrageously the entire show, more than Woohyun even usually does, and afterwards Sunggyu smacks the back of his head and nags him about it and Woohyun reminds him to keep it in his pants while they’re on TV.

In the car on the way back, through their late-night meal, and then through an hour or two of dance practice, Myungsoo alternately glares at and ignores Sungyeol, like he can’t decide if he’s angry or he’s hurt. For the life of him, Sunggyu has no idea why he’s acting this way—they must have had a fight earlier or something, except that Sungyeol seems like normal, so he’s not really sure.

It doesn’t make sense to him until he gets back to the dorm (an hour later than everyone else because he had some administrative things to take care of) and pushes open the door to the bedroom and—

And Sungyeol has Myungsoo up against the bedstead, his fingers biting into Myungsoo’s hips (Sunggyu can tell even from here), Myungsoo’s arms tight around his neck, a thigh shoved between Myungsoo’s legs. This isn’t drama-tepid kissing: there’s something heated and desperate about the way their mouths are moving and Myungsoo shoves his fingers into the mass of Sungyeol’s hair, tunneling through the locks in a way that looks helpless, and Sunggyu thinks he sees one of Sungyeol’s hands sneaking down to Myungsoo’s ass and—

And guys aren’t supposed to do this. They _aren’t_. Sunggyu believes that absolutely, has been taught it all his life, and every time he’s ever thought about guys being together…in that way…it’s made him feel sick to his stomach, the wrongness of it absolute and unquestionable in his eyes.

And yet.

And yet.

And yet the two of them like this, their chests pushed together, their long legs almost interwoven with each other, Myungsoo’s darker skin against Sungyeol’s paleness…it doesn’t look wrong. It looks…it looks like that’s how they’re meant to be, even with Sungyeol’s head ducking down so he can mouth at Myungsoo’s collarbones. 

Sunggyu’s stomach is knotting up, it’s true, but not in revulsion. It’s something else, something like confusion or bittersweetness or revelation, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that they _shouldn’t be doing this_ and yet every time he tries to tell himself that he thinks of how sometimes Myungsoo can be so determinedly focused on working hard to prove himself worthy and how Sungyeol’s antics are what shake him free of that tension, of how closed-off Sungyeol always looks after vocal practice and how Myungsoo acts like an idiot to distract him, of how Myungsoo sometimes gets so _angry_ after a too-invasive encounter with fans and how only Sungyeol goading him into laughter can relieve his furious rigidity, of how Sungyeol gets moody when he misses his mom and how Myungsoo brings him snacks and drinks and magazines until he’s back to himself again, of how sometimes Myungsoo seems like he’ll get lost in the tangle of his own mind and then he sees Sungyeol and suddenly he’s _back_ , of how Sungyeol gets rebellious and starts to sass back to someone in authority and Myungsoo has to put a hand on his arm and hold him back from doing something that destroys all they’ve worked so hard to build. 

They’re so cut off, all of them, from all the real relationships in their lives. They barely see their families, their friendships from Before Idolhood suffer because outside can’t really understand what it’s like, they never have nearly enough time with their idol friends as they need. And so the members cling to each other in different ways—Dongwoo touchestouchestouches all the time like each touch is a reminder that he and the people around him are real; Howon and Sungjong have long, quiet talks that they never share with anyone else; Woohyun feeds them all whenever he can like a mom showing her love through cooking and seems to need Kibum’s defiant honesty in order to breathe; Sunggyu lectures and nags and tries to remind them in any way he can that he’s looking out for them (no matter how inadequate he feels to the task). And Myungsoo and Sungyeol bicker and wrestle and tease and prank and pull closer and closer together and maybe this is just the inevitable end to that, the place they were always headed, something they never could have avoided even if they wanted to.

“Yeol—Sungyeol!” Myungsoo’s whine turns into a gasp and the sound of it jolts Sunggyu out of his thoughts. He hurls himself back out into the hall, rushing to Woohyun’s room, and the stupid sliding doors _don’t want to come open_ –he jerks and shakes them and is thinking about just trying to pull them out altogether but then they slide open and Woohyun is standing there, hair brushed back from his forehead and face clean of makeup, and he just blinks as Sunggyu pushes his way into the room.

“What the fuck, hyung? Are you running away from sasaeng fans or something?”

Sunggyu is drumming his fists against his head the way he does when he’s flustered, except usually it’s an embarrassed kind of flustered from being teased on variety shows, but right now it’s not that kind of flustered at all because this is _serious_ , this is a Big Deal, and it’s one of those things a leader should know how to handle, but right now he has absolutely no idea what do.

“I have to stop them, don’t I?” He’s barely aware he’s speaking out loud, definitely unaware of Woohyun watching his pacing with confused and concerned eyes. “That’s absolutely forbidden between members—I mean, I don’t think it’s in our contracts or anything, but that’s because it shouldn’t need to be, who would even think that—it’s not okay, what if they break up or whatever and it hurts Infinite? I have to stop them, don’t I, Woohyun?”

“Hyung, what are you talking about?”

“Ignoring this would be shirking responsibility, wouldn’t it? I need to put an end to it now before it gets even more serious—oh, God, it could be serious already, I don’t even know if that’s the first time or if they’ve been like this all along and—“

“Hyung.” Woohyun catches him by grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to face him. His eyes are worried but he’s wearing his open face, the one that Sunggyu has come to recognize means that he’s ready to listen and to do whatever Sunggyu needs him to do, the one that’s the only thing that gets Sunggyu through some days. “Tell me what’s going on. We’ll fix it. But you’ve got to tell me first.”

Sunggyu swallows hard, tries to find the words. “Myungsoo and—and Sungyeol. They—“ He can’t quite say it. He doesn’t even know what ‘it’ is. He can’t say, ‘they were kissing,’ because that sounds silly and shallow and not nearly intense enough for what they were doing. What are the words for that kind of thing, for Myungsoo’s eyes heavy-lidded and sinking shut, for the way they touched each other like they couldn’t even help themselves, for the way they seemed to be bringing each other back to life? Sunggyu’s mouth is dry and he can’t find the words so he just looks at Woohyun and hopes Woohyun still has the sometimes-displayed ability to read his mind.

“Oh,” Woohyun says after a moment, and Sunggyu sags just a little bit under his strong hands because of course Woohyun understands and now he won’t have to say it and—wait—

“You knew?” Sunggyu’s voice comes out squeakier than he knew he was capable of. If Woohyun knew all along and didn’t tell him, Sunggyu is going to _kill_ him and not let Kibum come to the funeral.

“I—no.” Woohyun looks a bit torn, too, confused but not surprised, and he releases Sunggyu’s shoulders and wanders over to the bed. Sunggyu follows. “I didn’t know, but I’m…I’m not surprised, you know? I guess they were kind of always headed there.”

Sunggyu’s had the same thought, but he doesn’t like it any more coming from Woohyun. “But I have to stop them, right? I have to sit them down and tell them they can’t do this. I need to rearrange the rooms—maybe switch Myungsoo with Howon. I should really tell the managers, but maybe we can just take care of this ourselves, I don’t want to embarrass them, but I need to go stop them right now, right, Woohyun?”

Woohyun shifts beside him—they’re sitting close enough that Sunggyu can feel it. “I don’t know, hyung.”

“You don’t—you don’t—how can you not _know_?”

Woohyun quirks an almost-smile. “Well, you don’t sound very sure yourself, hyung.”

Sunggyu sighs and buries his head in his hands, breathes in the sound of Woohyun’s steady breathing for a moment. “I know this isn’t okay. I know it could hurt Infinite so much, even if no one else ever finds out. There’s just…there’s no way that this could end up well.” Woohyun rests his hand on Sunggyu’s knee and Sunggyu stares down at it. Woohyun’s hands aren’t pretty, but they’re strong and capable and Woohyun’s. “But they—I see them together and they—“

“They make each other happy?” Woohyun suggests quietly, and fuck, of course that’s it, that’s exactly what they do, but that seems like such a stupid thing to say because happiness is fleeting and it isn’t like it’s the highest good. If what makes you happy hurts your family or your society, you should learn to set it aside and find something else that won’t. Sunggyu believes that, has built whole aspects of his life around it—he’s sacrificed happiness for Infinite so many times he wouldn’t even know where to start if he wanted to catalogue them. Happiness seems like a small thing compared to Infinite, to how hard the seven of them have worked, to everything they’ve sacrificed. 

Happiness could send it all collapsing around them, and Sunggyu wouldn’t be any kind of a leader if he let that happen.

“Fuck. Woohyun.”

They’re quiet for a very long time and then Woohyun gets up and grabs a couple of pairs of pajamas out of his drawer and throws one to Sunggyu. Sunggyu changes mechanically, then watches as Woohyun turns off the lights and slides the doors shut. 

Sunggyu’s been begging Woohyun to let him move into this room since the first week they moved dorms, and Woohyun’s never shown the slightest hint that he would ever yield, but he lets Sunggyu sleep with him tonight, even letting him in the bed beside him and not making him sleep on the floor. They aren’t—quite—touching, but Sunggyu’s left side feels warm with Woohyun beside him, and he’s glad of the sound of Woohyun’s breathing as he stares at the ceiling all night.

The next morning, the members give him a lot of sidelong glances, and he knows it’s because he’s more subdued than usual, but he’s so weighed down under the question of what to do that he can’t even bring himself to care. He lets Woohyun give the directions and corral the kids into getting ready and heading for the van, and he gnaws on his bottom lip as he watches Myungsoo’s shining eyes follow Sungyeol wherever he moves. Sungyeol isn’t paying Myungsoo any more attention than he usually does, teasing Sungjong and laughing with Dongwoo, but Sunggyu doesn’t think it’s his imagination that his grin is wider than usual this morning. And when they’re in the elevator and Myungsoo slips his arms around Sungyeol’s waist and backhugs him, Sungyeol doesn’t pause in his conversation with Hoya, but Sunggyu sees his fingers brush against Myungsoo’s hands for just a moment before the doors ping open and they’re all headed out to the van.

Sunggyu lets Sungjong have the front seat and sits himself in the back with Woohyun, watching the back of Myungsoo and Sungyeol’s heads the whole ride, even though they’re not doing anything.

“Would it really be so bad, hyung,” Woohyun whispers in his ear, “to just wait a while and see?”

Sunggyu isn’t used to doing that, doesn’t like hesitance or grey areas, likes to make decisions and stick to them. He isn’t sure that ‘waiting a while and seeing’ is a good policy for a leader. 

But.

But the day goes by just like any other day and Myungsoo and Sungyeol don’t really act any different than they’ve ever acted and the sky hasn’t fallen down and none of the interviewers demand that he explain his members’ behavior and he doesn’t get called into the CEO’s office, so…

Woohyun gives him a look, a look that says, ‘It’ll be okay, hyung,’ and if there’s one thing Sunggyu knows it’s that he trusts Woohyun. So, yeah. Maybe—for now—he’ll wait and see.

After all, he can keep a close eye on them—he’s their roommate now. 

At least until he finally convinces Woohyun to let him move in with him.


End file.
